Our annual Tumbleweed V-8 Club picnic and show was a great fun event with lots of flatheads, food and perfect weather.

Things got off to a rocky start when our show area at the Los Ranchos Village Hall Parking lot was filled by modern vehicles from a bicycle touring group that had arrived much earlier. The bicyclists apparently picked our reserved spot by happenstance. Things worked out fine however and our club just parked everywhere else until they returned from their tour and left. The fire department volunteered half of their driveway. So although we were scattered into four mini-shows, the cool weather made the partial lack of shade and grass a non-problem.

We had about sixteen flatheads and about the same number of other special cars including several street rods, a '60s Thunderbird, a '56 Ford Victoria, a '70s Mercury and others. Lots of drive-by visitors even though I failed to put an ad in the paper announcing our event. The food was great, topped off by a birthday cake announcing the 40th of our club and the 75th of Mercury. The cake was decorated with a funky portrait of Mr. Mercury with his winged hat on top of fat burner icing.

The raffle was a big success with the prizes that included a rare plastic '49 Mercury that played the "Mexican Hat Dance" among other favorites won by Bob Agnew, and a $73 cash top prize won by Bill Lemon. Tom and Dee Patterson's 1953 Ford convertible won the Dick Precit Memorial Award.